Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Backing Up Into An Abyss

I've been trying, in what might be a
futile effort, to back up all of my photos on the SD chip from my
phone. I have actually been trying for months, but I have given up
several times due to technical problems. But it is coming to a head
now. The chip is 128 GB, but is approaching capacity. And my phone,
which has 16 GB of internal memory, keeps refusing to load any more
emails periodically because it says internal memory is full. So I
will have to dump stuff every once in a while, and I have dumped so
many apps and files that now I am down to bare-bones. As I said,
I've tried several times to back up the SD card. Supposedly, Dropbox
is supposed to do this automatically, but it doesn't read the files
on my card or something, because it does not see the directory at all
that the pictures are in on the card. I've tried to manually back up
from my phone, and that is no good either. So I've tried on several
occasions to take the SD card out, put it in an adapter and slip it
into my laptop's SD slot, but that is massively slow. When I was
staying in hostels, I didn't ever have enough time. Now I think
maybe it is doing it, but it tells me there are 79 days left. I tried to back my card up when I was in Korea, where they have super fast Internet, and it still told me it would take a week, but I didn't have a safe place to leave my computer connected in the hostel for a week. At least I can keep it connected in the apartment, but there are long stretches of time when the connection is not happening. I've
been uploading for four days and it has barely moved the needle. What
is on Dropbox now is just a smattering of the files, and they are
uploading...and uploading...and uploading. The files might not even be complete and useable. It may not happen, yet again. Fun
with technology.

I went to the Vietnamese Women's Museum
today. My friend Paul said it was a good place to check out, so I
want and visited it today. I watched a fascinating film that talked
about how many of the street vendors in Hanoi come from little
villages around Vietnam to sell their wares on the streets, then
return to their villages with tiny amounts of money. One woman said
she returns every 10 to 12 days with about twenty dollars. One woman
says she gets up at 2 am to scour the markets and sell every day
until about 7 pm. One woman said she stays is a dormitory packed
with other women who sell stuff on the streets, and pays 35 cents a
day to stay there. There were also a lot of stories about women who
did stuff during the wars with France and the US. It was an
interesting experience.

But, I didn't have my SD card in my
phone, because it is sitting almost idle in my computer, getting the files to ooze slowly into on online backup, if it ever happens.
Luckily, internal memory was enough to take some pics in the museum.

The weather was just delightful walking
around Hanoi today. It was nice and cool, probably high 60s, with a
strong breeze. It was great walking around weather. I came back to
my apartment and left all the windows open so I could feel the wind
in the apartment. I get great cross-breezes when it is windy.

Well, the presidential election in the US is today. Finally, all the noisy bullshit will stop, and all the people who claim the world will collapse on Nov. 9th will finally shut the fuck up. Hopefully.